to increasing cooperation and spurring collaboration between industrial, financial, and academic entities. Accolades The ETF has been recognized nationally as the most active early-stage technology venture funds in the country. The fund estimates that portfolio companies and awardees have raised close to $1B in follow-on investment and private funding following ETF investment yet this is self reported information and has not been audited. Cardiospectra, Inc., an ETF portfolio company, was acquired by Volcano Corporation in December 2007 for $25M in cash with an additional $38M available upon the achievement of specific milestones. ETF's return on investment on the Cardiospectra deal was 216% as of January 2011. Several ETF companies have been acquired and there has been one initial public offering since the fund's inception. Fund Management The ETF is housed within the Economic Development and Tourism division of the Texas State Government. Terry Chase Hazell currently serves as the TETF Director and is considered the most private equity experienced director to serve. Prior TETF Directors include Jonathan W. Taylor, Mark Ellison, Alan Kirchhoff and interim director Patrick Boswell. You can visit the TETF website at: http://www.emergingtechfund.com ETF has consistently maintained an extremely low analyst to project investment ratio. Debates and commentary about funding The internal rate of return (IRR) of the ETF s very low and comparable to investing in U.S. treasuries. Therefore, questions have arisen about the ETF's required rate of return and performance against benchmark. Under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Rule 501 Regulation D, TETF does not fall under any of the eight definitions of accredited investor, affecting TETF's participation in follow on offerings. An October 2010 article by the Dallas Morning News editorial board argued for fundamental reform in how the fund works. The board stated, "The way Texas doles out money... raises such serious questions about the role of political donations in the fund's operation that the governor and the Texas Legislature should revamp it." Although the board considered it "a valuable program", it remarked that "other states have tried to keep politicians at arm's length from the selection and funding process... Texas needs to do the same". In response to criticisms, Governor Perry has said that it "is a pretty rare occurrence" for him to know that political supporters have connections to firms that receive funding. One such rare occurrence was Convergen Life Sciences, now called Genprex. The CEO, David Nance, was a